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Overview: Integrated Resource Management
IRM makes it easy to be sustainable because
it turns environmental accountability into a viable business decision. Integrated Resource Management
("IRM") is a process
where net value is the focus. IRM identifies how to optimise resource recovery using a unique integrated business case that includes pricing for the
environment, uses market values and non-financial aspects such as community needs. IRM can
achieve some or all of the following:
- Potentially profitable, net of costs
- Reduce GHGs by 25-33%
- Power the equivalent of 10% of homes
- Heat the equivalent of 30% of homes
- Run the equivalent of 10% of cars
- Recover, recycle and re-use clean, usable water
- Implementable in phases to match demand & development
- More effective than alternatives in debt/cost management
- Limit costs to taxpayers and developments
- Superior risk management of waste
- Decentralised incremental system
The key advantages include:
-
Viability. Enough energy
and materials can be recovered to potentially pay for the recovery process and when
optimised, yield a small profit (sufficient to pay for the process).
Traditional waste management is not usually viable and requires
payments (taxpayer support or similar disposal charges). At
minimum, IRM will usually minimise cost;
-
Phasing.
Because IRM uses phased implementation, it can grow in keeping with
demand. For developments, this means it can expand in pace
with the project rather than requiring all infrastructure to be
developed up front, thus reducing debt carry. This is
especially resilient and beneficial when economies fluctuate,
affecting demand;
-
Demand. Because
it can be phased, IRM can be scaled to meet community and business
growth, where, when and how it happens (which rarely happens exactly
in keeping with community plans). This reduces or eliminates
reliance on population and demand projections, which are rarely
achieved;
-
Densification.
Communities often grow upwards not outwards, in keeping with Smart
Growth. IRM provides an important advantage when communities
increase density, it can avoid or reduce costs of expensive
replacement or upgrading of existing under-capacitied waste
management infrastructure;
-
Debt. Because
it can be phased and scaled as, when and where needed, IRM is a
preferable approach to investment as it delays costs until they are
either profitable or necessary. For communities, businesses
and developments, this means debt finance is minimised. IRM is
thus the most fiscally responsible approach;
-
Independence. No single technology or solution is used: instead, IRM relies on a
sophisticated model to evaluate how technologies can be sequenced
to maximise recovery and minimise waste. This requires
adjusting depending on existing waste resources, distribution,
existing systems, potential resource needs and demand;
-
 Risk. Because
it is scalable and has localised phased plant, IRM is more
fault-tolerant. Traditional plants are large and when they
fail, affect entire systems. IRM's more localised solution
limits any failures. Within an IRM plant there is 100%
redundancy for key components, and when a plant fails it can
redirect capacity to other plants on the network. As it uses a
"package plant" approach, repair or replacement is designed to be
fast and easy;
-
Resilience.
Because IRM generates local energy, resource recovery and waste
management is more resilient to energy price and supply spikes, and
especially, supply interruptions, such as oil spikes following
hurricane Katrina, or earthquake power interruptions following
earthquakes;
-
Economies of scale.
Traditional waste management usually relies on large plants and
landfills on the principle that these create economies of scale.
In reality these are usually purpose-designed and there is limited
competition to build or operate them: the economies are
questionable. Conversely, IRM uses multiple small package
plants able to be supplied by a number of technology suppliers, thus
improving economies of scale and through competition, improving
-
Obsolescence.
IRM uses multiple components and the ability to replace and improve
with more efficient solutions can thus be handled incrementally.
This is more difficult with a traditional large-plant approach;
-
Scalable.
Installations from small to large can be addressed, even in smaller
or dispersed communities. While IRM works best in larger
developments and communities, it can also work in very small
communities which although probably less viable, will still prove
the least cost, most flexible and least risky solution;
-
Retrofit. IRM
can be retro-fitted to existing communities and infrastructure.
It is especially suitable where old waste infrastructure is failing
or requires replacement because it will generally reduce maintenance
and replacement costs.
It sometimes helps to hear what others have to say. To quote the Chief Ecologist for the United Nations Development
Program, Dr. Charles McNeill:
"I conclude that this IRM plan is conceptually sound and
on the right track, and if implemented it would likely provide a
model of great value to countless municipalities throughout the
world."
To quote the province of British Columbia, who are developing a
toolkit and resources to encourage towns and cities across BC to
move towards IRM:
"Integrated Resource Management (IRM) is an approach that
can complement, and potentially even transform, traditional
planning and design of infrastructure, and has the potential to
result in reduced emissions and local government operation
costs, as well as other benefits"
For more information contact Fidelis,
download the summaries at the top of this page, read
the full 181-page provincial IRM Report
or read the IRM Report Background page. |
